Money sent
home by Filipinos working abroad hit $5.1 billion in the first quarter, up 5.6
percent from $4.8 billion a year ago, on sustained demand for Filipino talents,
the Bangko Sentral said Wednesday.

Remittance
growth, however, slowed to 3 percent in March from 6 percent in February and 8
percent in January.It was also slower
than the 5-percent increase recorded in March 2012.

Remittances
from nearly 10 million Filipino migrants and workers abroad account for about a
tenth of the gross national income and support various sectors of the economy.

Cash
remittances in March reached $1.75 billion, up from $1.7 billion a year ago. It
was also higher than $1.7 billion in February.

Data showed
that including non-cash items, personal remittances grew 3.7 percent to $1.9
billion in March and 6.2 percent to $5.6 billion in the first quarter.

“The steady
increase in personal remittances during the quarter was driven by robust
remittance flows from both land-based [overseas Filipino] workers with work
contracts of one year or more [$4.2 billion], as well as sea-based workers and
land-based workers with short-term contracts [$1.3 billion],” the Bangko
Sentral said.

Primary
sources of remittances in the three-month period were the United States
accounting for 42.6 percent of total cash remittances; Canada, 8.2 percent;
Saudi Arabia, 7.9 percent; the United Kingdom, 5.7 percent; the United Arab
Emirates, 4.5 percent; Singapore, 4.2 percent; and Japan, 3.7 percent.

The Bangko
Sentral cited data from the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration
showing approved job orders hit 292,483 in the first four months, of which
about 27 percent consisted of processed orders mainly for services, production,
and professional, technical and related workers.

These
processed job orders were largely intended for the manpower requirements of
Saudi Arabia, UAE, Qatar, Hong Kong and Kuwait.